I have three EA82 wagons, 1 with a factory roof rack and 2 w/o roof racks. Both cars w/o roof racks sound like a tin can when driving on rough roads. The roofs bounce up and down and is enough to drive a sane person crazy. Surly this isn’t a common problem is it? Are there braces above the headliner to stiffen the roof that’s possibly bent? I don’t want to pull the headliner down just to find everything is ok. Do I need to install factory roof racks to stiffen the roofs?

reasonably easy fix

 

there are bars that run across the roof that have a few blobs of glue to hold them onto the roof

 

more than likely these have come unglued

 

just run some sikaflex all along them and make sure they are well stuck and you wont have the problem again.

 

 

if you want to go further, cover the roof with dynamat after glueing the bars back on and you wont even hear the rain on the roof anymore

The glue and:

 

 

Paint

it does a body good.

my roof does the same thing, after my 180# brother decided to see if the roof would hold him

 

The hard part will be removing the trim on the pillars, then removing the head liner. Actually fixing the bent supports across the roof should be fairly easy.

 

-Dave

Thanks for all the help!

 

It should be a very easy repair except for the headliner. I’m not looking forward to removing it but since it’s necessary, I will. The last time I had a headliner loose at the rear, I wasn’t able to get it back in place like the factory installation.